Women's Roles in World War II: Opportunity and Abuse

Introduction: War, Women, and a World in Transition

The scope of World War II was unprecedented in its time and has yet to be succeeded by anything that remotely resembles it in terms of the number of participants, the geographical range of its impact, or the sheer extremity of its horror and carnage. Likewise, there has rarely been a catastrophic, man-made event on such a scale as to fully recalibrate the entire globe through its aftermath, as occurred in the wake of this international conflict. This is the impetus which drives the following discussion on the oft-overlooked impact of war on women.

Throughout history, where war has been fought, the emphasis on combat roles and administrative leadership responsibilities — both facilities significantly and exclusively occupied by men — has far overshadowed the supporting roles to which women have been relegated. The outcome is a recollection of wars and heroics that quite often excludes, minimizes, or disrespects the contributions made by women. There is yet an even greater injustice due for consideration: the opportunity provided by wartime conditions for a marked increase in the abuses inflicted upon women. The basest instincts of inequality, sexual objectification, and power imposition would manifest in several examples of wartime roles for women that were devastating and even deadly.

Perhaps what emerges most clearly from the discussion that follows — which synthesizes a recollection of both the opportunities and abuses facing women during the war — is the notion that a conflict on such a scale inevitably impacts everybody. While men sought to actively limit the roles which women could occupy in society, the totality of war would make these limitations impractical and impossible. As pioneers, so many of the women who experienced, survived, or sacrificed in World War II endured great difficulty and suffering so that women today could be entitled to equal service not just in the military, but in positions of public office, corporate leadership, and all manner of occupational responsibility that, prior to the workforce shifts and labor reorientation demanded by World War II, would have been considered unthinkable.

Economic factors in the years immediately preceding the war, Weinberg (1995) reveals, would play a significant part in the mounting tensions that ultimately produced the conflict. However, it is evident that these economic factors would quickly unearth a vast array of cultural tensions, pushing these issues largely to the forefront of events. In Germany, for instance, severe depression enabled Hitler to wrestle power from legitimate governmental structures and to levy the support of his people. His emphasis on imperial expansion and his scapegoating of the minority populations who would soon occupy his death camps throughout Europe provided Germans with a means of escaping the confines of economic stagnation while simultaneously realizing long-standing bigotry and prejudice.

Though the designs were quite different, similar objectives made the undertaking of the war effort beneficial to the United States. Though the attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war on the U.S. both provoked the first direct military intervention by the United States, it may be assessed that the flagging impact of Roosevelt's New Deal on the Great Depression ultimately demanded a new means of transcending economic woes. Wartime industries and the instantaneous job creation of a military draft became the immediate boon to American industries required to shake the nation from its productivity slumber.

These parallels are important in helping us to understand the strange dynamic between economy and culture that conspired to instigate the breadth and severity of conflict in World War II. As an underlying premise to the discussion held here, it should be understood that where oppression and abuse of a selected people exists, the women among them are certain to suffer the firmest brunt of it. The sexual power dynamics between the genders dictate that where men are victimized by oppression, both they and their oppressors tend to victimize women with greater intensity. By contrast, the observation in justice-oriented societies of the extremity of bigotry in the world will tend to incline internal reflection and reconciliation.

Though on the surface, the increased accessibility of public institutions to women in some contexts during World War II would be a product of strategic necessity, it would bear with it a change in core assumptions about women that must be seen as comparably progressive. Essentially, the discussion here will reveal that women played crucial and varied roles in the global conflict. And more to the point, both the advances in opportunities and the terrible horrors experienced by women during the war would help to establish the global identity of women today as deserving of equality and entitled to protection against the worst abuses of which men are capable.

Research on the roles of women during World War II demonstrates a clear pattern in which the records of Allied nations tend to be modestly progressive, if not reluctantly yielding to the demand for an elevation in the status of women. In nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom, the war would be an inflection point in gender relations, with women truly gaining access for the first time to military, civilian, labor, and professional responsibilities all culturally and psychologically associated with male social and economic roles. In the Soviet Union and Poland, where Marxist principle had taken firm philosophical root, there is an indication that women were perceived in many capacities as being equally capable as men in certain military roles. Here, the record for progressive equality was even more rapidly accelerated by World War II than in the West.

By sharp contrast, the impulses guiding the Axis powers — distinguished by aggressively dictatorial governmental structures and premises of strict social control — would reflect an intensification of the historical mistreatment of women. Even as the German military, for instance, allowed women to be elevated in civilian duties and required a strong corps of women to serve as SS guards in female barracks of the concentration and death camps, there is a clear history of sexual objectification and deviant abuse of female prisoners, as will be discussed hereafter. So too would this be the case with the Japanese, who would use aggressive and terrible tactics of sexual dominion over the women of occupied nations, both as a show of power and a determination to impose ethnic domination over foreign lands.

Though the research here makes clear distinctions between the behaviors of the Allied and Axis nations with regard to women, there is a consistency across all contexts. In each case, World War II would mark a point of separation in which the experiences of women would enter into transition. For many, this would mean a significant but measured improvement of conditions; for others, it would be a historical low point due for reflection and consideration in the interests of future prevention.

The discussion is largely founded on a synthesis of primary sources — including newspapers and publications concurrent with the war as well as interviews with individuals who experienced, participated in, or served in the war effort. Some support is given by secondary sources that provide basic documentation on the details, events, and notable individuals who served in the conflict.